Catalogue size
60,000+
Products used
Tag & Search with Dashboard
Business Problem
Hipgnosis Song Fund is a Music IP Investment and Management company renowned for acquiring some of the best music catalogues in the world.
Hipgnosis acquires new catalogues at speed, and in combinations not previously seen in the industry before, so searching for the most appropriate placement can be a challenge when you represent a new and exciting combination of tracks. Each incoming catalogue has been previously stored using different methods, so the task of finding and organizing the music becomes exponentially more difficult.
The main job of Music Funds such as Hipgnosis is to ensure that every single piece of music delivers a reliable Return on Investment. Ensuring that the music is tagged and searchable is the first step. Here’s how we helped:
The Solution Explained: Tag
The Hipgnosis team uses our off-the-shelf tagging product.
Our AI instantly tags new acquisitions so that the team is able to search and find new tracks without adding, changing or updating metadata manually. Our tags include genres, moods, vocal gender and presence, an energy spectrum, key, BPM and more.
This provides the team with a centralized system and unified taxonomy that they can learn and agree upon, which helps Hipgnosis to “clean up” messy metadata, and ensure that no mystery genres or tags appear while the team is searching through the catalogue.
How does tagging work?
When our AI receives audio input, it converts that file into a spectrogram – a graphical representation of various discrete qualities of audio. It then analyzes that spectrogram, comparing it to the 2 centuries of music it has been trained on, and returns a set of descriptive tags with >90% accuracy (see example below).
The Solution Explained: Search
Hipgnosis uses our no-code, drag-and drop Search dashboard to tag, search, playlist, and send their music to clients for placement. New catalogues can be uploaded, processed and added to their dashboard on the same day.
From here, they can use audio reference search (think reverse image search for audio) with YouTube links or client tracks, filter with tags, and send out playlists in response to sync and licensing briefs. Turning days long searches into seconds long searches.
With Musiio’s solutions, all of Hignosis’ tracks are just a few clicks away when needed, which maximises the ROI of every single track.
How does search work?
Similar to tagging, our AI converts audio files into spectrograms, which are used directly, and independent of metadata, to search the entire catalogue for the closest match based on up to 1,500 data points per track.
This is far more detailed than a metadata search (usually a maximum of 20 keywords per track). The AI picks up similarities in less verbally quantifiable musical characteristics: vocal tone, instrumental density, reverb type, and sound effects, for example.
Hipgnosis is able to use Musiio’s tags to narrow down an initial set of results. Perhaps a client has requested something similar to a reference track, but wants a slower version, or definitely a male vocal.
While Search works independently of Tagging, both technologies can be combined to great effect. Setting a filter to focus on tracks tagged with Male-only vocals or a lower BPM allows Hipgnosis to determine the closest match in just a few steps.
Not only does Musiio’s A.I. answer a longstanding question, but it’s ready to go – and it works. Crucially the team at Musiio have worked with us, to customise their platform to suit our exact requirements. This bespoke tool now allows us to instantaneously filter our 60,000 songs – in the ways that meet the needs of music supervisors, directors, advertising agencies, producers and broadcasters alike – at the press of a button.”
Tom Stingemore, EVP Sync & Creative at Hipgnosis Songs.
Interested in how AI can help your business? Contact sales@musiio.com